The Boy Who Lived
by Nancy Brown
Summary: Steven's uncle is coming to visit. Part of my fake third season.


Title: The Boy Who Lived  
Rating: G  
Requester: **lawsontl**  
Prompt: your ET/TW crossover. Any day after the story finishes, Jack, Ianto, Alice and Steven (I know, it's four, but one's a kid!) having a meal together or some other type of family bonding that's also a bit of a debrief/post-mortem of the alien visit.  
Author's Note: For those coming in late, this is a coda to The Extraterrestrial.

* * *

Saturdays were the best days of the whole week. Weekdays meant waking to the alarm, dozing off again, and then getting up to Mum yelling at him to get his bum out of bed. Hurry to dress, hurry to eat, stay out of Mum's way when she got lunches ready, and out the door, and Steven hardly had time to breathe.

Saturdays meant no shouting, lazy curling up under his sheets, and when he finally went downstairs, cereal in front of the telly for as long as he wanted.

His clock said it was past eight, and he could hear Mum downstairs. He lay in bed a little longer, thinking about school. The work was never hard, no matter what the subject. His classmates complained all the time, but Steven sped through his assignments and spent the rest of his time daydreaming. Mum told him - at home where no-one could hear - that she'd excelled at school when she was a girl, that it was a good thing but try not to show off. "Try not to stand out," was what she meant, and he could never figure out why. His best mate Bobby didn't mind if Steven was smart, but Bobby had moved and Steven had made a new friend, but the new friend had been a special secret who'd gone away again.

"Why'd you have police at your house?" Mary Duncan had asked him two days later when he'd been well enough to go back to school. Mary lived on his street.

"There was a robber," Steven had told the little crowd of kids who'd gathered round to hear. "He held up Mum and me, but the police came and he got away." Mum and Uncle Jack had coached him on the story, once UNIT had left and all the mess in the house got cleaned up.

"What'd he look like?" Mary pressed, but Steven did what Uncle Jack had told him to do, and shivered, and said he didn't want to talk about it. The other kids grumbled and walked off, except the new boy, Tim. He'd moved over the summer into their neighbourhood.

"Really a robber?"

"Really," said Steven.

After that, the other kids had gone back to ignoring him, which was okay because he wasn't sure how he'd keep lying about the squashy alien who'd lived in his wardrobe. Mary Duncan said he was a freak, and her girlfriends tittered when he walked by, but Steven told himself he didn't care.

And now it was Saturday, and he didn't have to deal with Mary Duncan and the rest for two whole days. Steven crawled out of bed, put on his play clothes, and went downstairs for breakfast.

"Good morning," said Mum, sitting at the table with her coffee and her newspaper.

"Morning, Mum." He got out the sugary chocolatey marshmallowy cereal he liked best and made himself an overflowing bowl with lots of milk as Mum watched, smiling in a weird way at him.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"'m good," he said around his first crunchy bite.

"Not tired? Nothing sore?" Mum had asked him every day since the alien left how he felt, which was weird. He felt fine. And of course she always ended with: "Do you still miss your friend?"

Steven shrugged, like he always did. "Yeah." But as the days passed, he found that he missed Bobby more.

Usually, Mum would drop it after that, but usually, it was morning and he was running late anyway. Mum said, "Your uncle is dropping by later." Her face got that look she always did when she mentioned Uncle Jack, like she just bit into a lemon but didn't want to look like she just bit into a lemon.

Steven grinned around his cereal. Uncle Jack had been by a lot lately, even before the alien, and he always brought presents. Mum scolded him and said he was spoiling Steven, but Steven didn't mind one bit.

Mum watched his face. "Now, he _said_he was dropping by. His job keeps him very busy, and he might not have a chance." She always said that, when she said he was coming to visit. Sometimes she was right. His grandmother used to say the same thing and sometimes Steven thought Mum wanted to say something else, thought he heard other words under the ones she said. "Go spend time with your uncle" was said in the same warning tones as "Don't talk to strangers" and "Don't go play with the faeries."

Steven finished his cereal and watched telly until Mum made him do his chores and start his homework.

At four, there was a knock on the door, and Steven beat Mum to it, remembering before he did the lock that he was never ever supposed to open the door himself, even if he knew who it was. Anyone who belonged there would have a key, and anyone who didn't would have the Devil's own time of getting in while he got himself away. His grandmother's rules again, he remembered, imprinted on him like words to paper.

Mum opened the door with a tight smile. Uncle Jack had a wide grin for her, and a paper bag full of what Steven thought looked like groceries. He wasn't alone. Mum's eyes went back and forth between them, until she finally said, "Well, come in, then."

Steven was used to Mum and Uncle Jack. Most people said "Hello!" or "How are you?" or "What a pleasant surprise!" but when it was Uncle Jack, Mum tended to say, "Oh, it's you."

As soon as Uncle Jack was inside, Steven piled into him. Uncle Jack set down the bag and picked him up like he didn't weigh anything at all. Mum said Steven was too big for her to lift anymore, but Uncle Jack made him feel like he could fly.

"Did we come at a bad time?" asked Uncle Jack's friend. Mr. Jones, that was his name. He'd been at their house when the alien had gone home, and again right after. He was one of Uncle Jack's work friends, so maybe Uncle Jack had to go back to work soon.

"No," said Mum. "I was about to get supper started." She looked through the bag while Uncle Jack swung Steven around so hard it made his stomach do flips. "If you make him vomit, you're cleaning it up."

"Fine, fine."

Steven found himself on the ground again. He wasn't supposed to ask for presents, and he didn't see anything in the bag that looked like toys, just some bread and some bottles and things. Steven spied something wrapped that could be a cake.

Mr. Jones said, "Jack wasn't sure what you were planning, so we picked up a few extras."

"That's fine," Mum said, and lifted the bag. She tilted her head to Uncle Jack. "A word? In the kitchen?" Uncle Jack ruffled Steven's hair and followed her into their kitchen while Mr. Jones found a hook for his own jacket. Without the jacket, Steven could see the cast on his arm. There were lots of names on it, and some pictures, too. When Jamie Harold broke his leg last summer, all the kids had written their names on his cast too, and Steven had drawn a picture of a mouse with great big ears.

Mr. Jones looked at Steven, his mouth crumpled up for a moment like he was thinking hard, maybe. "It's good to see you again," he said, finally. "Have you been well?"

Steven shrugged like he did with his mum. "Yeah."

"Good." He stared into the kitchen, where Mum was talking in her low, annoyed voice. "Do you know if your uncle told your mother I was coming with him?"

He shrugged again. "Dunno. She didn't say. Do you want to see my room?"

"I've alre … Sure."

Steven went upstairs with Mr. Jones behind him. Mr. Jones had seen Steven's room before, when the alien was still there, but now Steven got to show him all his cool aeroplanes and rocket ships, and this one neat book he had about whales, and the race cars that really moved. He couldn't show his computer, not since the alien broke it, but that was okay. Mr. Jones sat in the one chair in the room, and he smiled like he was a little scared as Steven showed him everything.

There was a knock on the doorframe, and Uncle Jack said, "I was wondering where the two of you got to."

"Steven was showing me his toys."

"Steven has a lot of great toys." Uncle Jack loved coming up here and playing with him, and he always made the best noises when they flew the planes around the room.

"I can see that." He got up from the chair and went over to Uncle Jack. In a soft voice that Steven wasn't supposed to be able to hear, he said, "Is Alice angry?"

"Alice is always angry at me."

"I should go."

Uncle Jack's hand shot out and held his friend's good arm. "No, you should stay."

"Not if it's going to make things more difficult between the two of you."

"She'll be fine. She likes having things to resent me for."

Mr. Jones sighed. "Jack … "

"I want you here. Please?"

Uncle Jack hardly ever said "please," which was one of the things that Mum complained about using very bad words Steven wasn't allowed to say. Mr. Jones had the same look on his face that Mum got when Uncle Jack said something crazy and she didn't believe him, which was most of the time. "I don't think it will be useful for either of us if you parade around your latest … " he broke off, looking over at Steven. "Anyway, I'm sure she's tired of you bringing people over unannounced."

"I don't … " Uncle Jack's face changed a little then. "Steven, when's the last time I brought someone over to visit with me?"

Steven thought. "Last week. Mr. Jones and Miss Cooper and Miss Habiba." He stumbled over the last name, just as he had the first time he'd said it. "And all those UNIT people. And Miss Johnson." She'd been around three more times since, but Uncle Jack hadn't been with her.

"What about before that?"

He shrugged. "Dunno."

"I don't bring people over, do I?" Steven shook his head. "Unless you've got an alien in your wardrobe. So if I do bring someone over, that's a pretty special occasion, right?"

Another shrug. Steven had learned from his Mum how not to answer questions if there was no good answer. "I guess."

"So let's all go downstairs and have some supper together." He looked at Mr. Jones, "All right?"

"What if she hates me?"

"Then we're spending the holidays with your sister. _She_likes me." Mr. Jones kind of froze in place, like the little rabbit Steven found in the yard one morning, too scared to run. Uncle Jack laughed. "Complain about me over dinner. Alice will be your new best friend." He gave his friend a quick squeeze, and then he swooped over to pick up Steven.

Steven held out his arms like a bird as his uncle flew him down to stairs, both of them whooping and laughing as Mum frowned. "Be careful with him. God knows you'll drop him."

"Never!" said Uncle Jack.

Mr. Jones came down the stairs behind them. "I take it when he comes to visit, you've got two children in the house?"

Mum kept frowning, but Steven could tell she was trying to fight a smile.

Supper was delicious, a creamy pasta dish that Steven loved, and his uncle showed him how to mop up all the sauce with the bread and make noises as they ate it. Mum sighed a lot, but so did Mr. Jones, and they both agreed that they just couldn't take Uncle Jack anywhere, really.

Steven was midway through a large slice of chocolate cake when the phone rang. Mum answered and said it was for him. That usually meant it was his dad, but when he said, "Hello?" the voice on the other end was the new boy, Tim, inviting him over to play and watch a DVD.

His stomach got tangled a little. Uncle Jack was over, and that usually meant Steven ought to stay and be nice to family. But Uncle Jack had been coming around a lot lately, and would be coming around more, and maybe that meant it would be okay. Part of him was sad because he still missed Bobby, and he hadn't played with anyone except the alien since Bobby had left. But part of him wanted to go see Tim's toys, and anyway, it sounded like fun.

"Can I go?"

Mum fussed over him. "Are you sure you feel up to it?" Steven nodded. "I suppose you can go."

Steven let out a yell and then told Tim it was okay. He kissed his Mum, got a quick hug from his uncle, and hurried into his jacket. The adults stayed at the table, with cake and coffee, and Mum wasn't even yelling at Uncle Jack. They were talking, boring grown-up talk, and Steven was glad he had the chance to go play.

They were still talking when he got home, hours later.

* * *

The End

* * *

AN: The next story in this series is "The Faintest Restless Rustling Ran All Through"


End file.
